Mascara applicators today typically comprise a tubular container that contains a supply of mascara, and a slender brush having a cap on one end that provides a handle which may be threaded upon the neck of the container with the brush located within the mascara. In use, the cap on the end of the brush is unscrewed from the container neck and the brush removed bearing a supply of mascara on its bristles. The user may then stroke the mascara laden bristles upon her eyelashes and upon completion of the application replace the brush back with its bristles housed within the container and its supply of mascara. Exemplary of such mascara applicators are those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,908,676, 3,998,235, 3,921,650, 3,998,235, 4,165,755 and 4,461,312.
Advances made recently in the design of mascara applicators have resulted from a continuing need to improve the ease and effectiveness by which mascara may be applied to eyelashes. As this art has matured efforts have been made to provide applicators by which mascara may be distributed evenly to both left and right eyelashes and homogeneously to eyelashes of varying densities, fineness and shapes. Thus, some applicators have been provided with different peripheral shapes such as conical, cylindrical and oval. Others have provided brushes that have pivot means for reorienting the brush end while others still have included a comb, brush and serrated implements all upon one working end of the applicator to enhance versatility.
Though mascara applicators have now reached a mature state of development they nevertheless are still beset with some problems. For example, since few people are ambidextrous it is commonly desirable to apply mascara with either one's right or left hand to the lashes of both eyes. However, shape and orientation of brush bristles of a single applicator are each normally fixed. Therefore, where their design is well suited for applying mascara to the lashes of one eye with one hand, they are inherently not as well suited for applying mascara with the same hand to the other eye. This is because outside lashes tend to be longer than inside lashes located closer to the nose. Thus, an applicator that has a generally cylindrical, peripheral surface of its brush bristles is better suited for applying mascara to the central portion of the lashes than to the end portions. Where the applicator has a conical shape of bristles, with the apex of the conical mass located at the tip of the brush, the brush is well suited for applying with the right hand mascara to right eyelashes while it is ill suited for applying mascara to the left eye lashes unless a hand switch is made.
In addition, with the just described applicators mascara is applied from a common supply to the lashes of both eyes. As a result any bacteria associated with an illness of one eye, even in an embryonic stage of development before it is recognized, may be transported to the other eye upon the application of mascara from such a common source. As a result a medical problem with one eye is likely to be spread to the other eye in the process of applying the cosmetic. This is one of the reasons why physicians commonly instruct female patients with an eye disease to discard all of their partially used supplies of mascara.
It is thus seen that a need remains for a mascara applicator that would tend to alleviate the just described problems associated with those applicators of the prior art. It is to the provision of such an applicator that the present invention is therefore primarily directed.